Crystal Palace chairman Steve Parish has confirmed that the club will lodge an appeal after being demoted from the Europa League by UEFA.
European football governing body UEFA, had ruled last week that the London side should be demoted from the Europa League to the UEFA Conference League next season after breaching multi-club ownership regulations.
Read this: Crystal Palace demoted to Conference League by UEFA
American businessman John Textor, who owns a stake in Crystal Palace, also owns a majority stake in French club Olympic Lyon, who also qualified for the Europa League via their league finish.
The Eagles had qualified for the competition after recording a shock 1-0 win over Manchester City in the final of last season’s FA Cup, and missed UEFA’s March 1st deadline to show proof of restructuring.
“We are still fighting, There’s an appeal process, so we go to CAS which is the court for arbitration and, you know, we’re very hopeful. We think we’ve got great legal arguments”, Parish revealed.
“We don’t think this is the right decision by any means and we know unequivocally that John didn’t have decisive influence over the club.
We know we proved that beyond all reasonable doubt because it’s a fact”, he continued.
Textor had stepped away from Palace’s duties last month, although the deadline set by UEFA had been surpassed.
Parish has now revealed that the Eagles will take the next step, which means referring the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sports for a proper hearing.
“We feel that there are a lot of very genuine mitigating circumstances and more than enough wriggle room to put us in the competition”, the Eagles chairman added.
“It does look bad. This is the dream right? This is what keeps football alive. This is why everybody goes, because they think one day they might win a cup and they might qualify for Europe.
These things can be defining moments for a club and completely change the course of history forever. Hopefully when we go to CAS we get the right answer.
We get the written version of (the ruling) with the detail then apparently the appeal is 10 days”, he concluded.
Nottingham Forest, who finished seventh in the league, will replace Crystal Palace in the UEFA Europa League.
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